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Affordable Care Act Extension for NYers Ends Friday Night

  Central New Yorkers trying to sign up for medical insurance through the state's health exchange have until Friday night to enroll in order to have that coverage take effect January 1st.  New York Health Benefit Exchange Director Donna Frescatore  says an original deadline was pushed back.

This week phones rang at record pace as people tried to get answers about the various insurance plans or needed help completing applications.  

Afrordable_Care-Frescatore.mp3
Frescatore explains the heavy call volumes.

Health Exchange officials released some preliminary data about enrollments thus far for the 2015 coverage year.  As of earlier this week more than 154-thousand people had signed up for new health coverage that were not enrolled in 2014.  That figure does not include those that had coverage in 2014 and are re-enrolling.  

Frescatore finds about 6-in-10 of those who sign up are covered under Medicaid.  Enrollment continues after the Friday, Dec. 20th deadline, but that health coverage wont go into effect  until at least February 1st.  

Individuals and small busijnesses can find out options at the state's Health Exchange Website.

Chris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards.